By White Horse to Leicester [1]

A Surfeit of Splendid Stations

Leicester, in its day, had more than its fair share of railway stations. All that remains is the recently refurbished London Road.

But the Midland Railway also had a small suburban stop at Humberstone Road, north of the main station.

Keen-eyed observers can spot the remnants of the steps up to the platform ...

... but nothing remains of the neat little building down at street level.

Leicester Central remains as a structure; but you would never know that it was once a grand station

Leicester's newest station, Leicester North ...

... is the southern terminus of the Great Central (preserved) railway and it is off the map at the top.

Diminutive Leicester West Bridge closed to passengers in 1928 ...

... but just a little memory of the Leicester and Swannington Railway terminus remains.

Often vandalised, you do wonder how many Leicesterians undretsand its history.

One line and its station remains to be recorded.

The Great Northern Railway built a branch from its secondary route (joint with LNWR) south from Melton Mowbray.

The main services from Leicester Belgrave Road ...

... were to Peterborough and Grantham. The station was also well provided in summer with specials, especially to Skegness and Mablethorpe.

The Peterborough trains were stopped as a war economy in 1916. Local traffic was never heavy, and by 1950 there were only two Grantham trains remaining, one of which was a semi-fast with limited stops which connected with the Flying Scotsman at Grantham. This train was withdrawn in 1951, the remaining stopping train survived until the end of regular services over the joint line in 1953.

Summer specials continued to run until 1962, in the later years with severe speed restrictions on the Leicester branch.

There is no sign of the station from the road, just yet another Sainsburys supermarket and its car park which itself is now due to be redeveloped.

The first station to the east was Humberstone of which nothing recogniseable remains.

So, if you were the members of Abingdon Model Railway Club, which Leicester station would you choose as a basis for one of your biggest layouts.

Guess!

More from Abingdon tomorrow.

 Final Abingdon blog : Tuesday 29th March 

By White Horse to Merstone

From Abingdon to the Isle of Wight

Just over a week ago, fbb took his younger grandson to the superb White Hose Leisure Centre in Abingdon. Was it for Swimming, Tennis or Indoor Football?

For fbb, you must be joking! No; it was Abrail, the annual show of Abingdon Model Railway Club.

25 layouts of high quality, plus some trade stands were located in a large sports hall. One of the first layouts that fbb spotted bore a familiar name, Merstone.

Merstone Station was the third stop on the Isle of Wight Central Railway's line from Newport, after Shide and Blackwater. The line then split with one branch going to Verntor West via Godshill, Whitwell and St Lawrence, and the other following the plain of the River Yar to Sandown All lines were single track.

Ther line was opened in 1875 and closed well before Beeching had been though of in 1956. Merstone Station did not generate much traffic but occasionally sprang into life when a few passengers changed from the Ventnor West Branch to go to Sandown and vice versa.

Here, in 1950, is a train taking the Ventnor line.

And here is a view from the level crossing.

Note the boarded walkway between the two sets of railings. The railings are there because access to the platforms was, at one time, by a subway; obviously needed to cater for the busy train frequency NOT! The subway was prone to flooding and the successor Southern Railway filled it in. It was probably never used.

Amazingly the station platform is still there ...

... but the double deck house, seen in the top pictures, has been replaced by a small development of single deck residences.

And so to the model.

The Merstone layout was started by one of the Group’s former Chairmen Rod Lerew who very sadly died in 2015. Alton Model Railway Group member Mark Pretious took on the completion of the layout and this year's February exhibition was its first outing. Coincidentally the Saturday of the exhibition was also exactly the 60th anniversary of the closure of the real Merstone station.

At the exhibition on the Saturday morning there was a short re-opening ceremony which was attended by Rod’s widow and two daughters.

fbb's pictures are largely taken from the AMRG web site.  Here is the station looking west towards Newport.

And a close-up of the signabox clearly showing the wooden walkway. The ditch in front and beyond the boardwalk represents the flooded subway!

We also have a reminder of the now demolished cottages ...

... almost certainly built in this remote spot for railway staff.

From a practical point of view the layout is "end to end" which means trains run to and from hidden sidings.

This one is called a "sector plate" and allows you to slide the set of siding to link any stored train with the layout's track. A clever plan which means you don't need points and you can have lots of different trains trundling along the line in turn.

Merstone is still served by public transport and there is a bus stop at the station for those that may wish to enjoy the platform edging.

If Merstone Station is to join your bucket list, here is a timetable extract. The half hourly frequency runs seven days a week in the summer timetable period.

As well as service the whole village, the bus frequency is far, far better that the train ever was. In fact the present-day bus service to Merstone is far better than the bus service ever was. Historically, Merstone never enjoyed more than an hourly service 17.

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A reminder : Easter weekend blogs (Friday to Tuesday) have been posted in advance as fbb would have been bereft of wifi and phone signal for most of his sojourn in Beddgelert, North Wales. But the trip was cancelled and fbb decided not to waste the blogs; using the saved time for other productive purposes. Of which more in due course.

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 Next Abingdon blog : Monday 28th March 

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Easter Lamb - All Gone?

The events of "Good" Friday were not very "Good" for Jesus and not very good for his followers who all ran away! By Friday sundown the whole Jesus thing had become a dismal failure. But one of those tapestry threads, woven by holy men of old, went a bit further with the idea.

Here, for example,  is Isaiah, writing about 500 years before Jesus arrived in the narrative.

But because of our sins he was wounded,
beaten because of the evil we did.
We are healed by the punishment he suffered,
made whole by the blows he received.

He was treated harshly, but endured it humbly;
he never said a word.
Like a lamb about to be slaughtered,
like a sheep about to be sheared,
he never said a word

After a life of suffering, he will again have joy;
he will know that he did not suffer in vain.
and through him my purpose will succeed

That empty tomb, however hard it is to accept. remains, in the 21st century, a real challenge which cannot easily be avoided.

 Some Easter Lamb, eh?

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Oxfordshire Oddments

 Bridge Building 

See "Tears for Tramway Terminus Termination" (read again)

Just under 12 months ago, fbb was at the railway bridge of the the Great Western main line just north of Wantage; the site of the former Wantage Road station. There were notable signs of BAM Nuttall's lads preparing to replace the A338 road bridge.

The "Works" is the HQ of the Williams Formula 1 organisation. The "PH" is closed after an attempt at being and American Diner. But today, as you approach from the north, you espy one of these.

It's size can be judged better from the gates to the site, now looking towards the north.

It stands where the Wantage Tramway station once awaited interchange passengers and goods from the main line. The cream crud marks the approach ramps to the new bridge ...

... and fbb guesses that some massive concrete beams will be put in place over the tracks. There is a map to explain all.

The orange is the existing carriageway, the grey the new road and the green is the grassed embankments.

All this to make room for the Great Western electric string.

 Ah, well; improvements at Harwell 

The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a science and technology campus near the villages of Harwell and Chilton, Oxfordshire. The site is 2 miles outside Didcot, about 15 miles south of Oxford and roughly 6 miles east of Wantage. A large part of the site was formerly the main research establishment of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, but it has seen a transition to its new role as a science and business park as the nuclear facilities have been decommissioned.

No 1 son's late father-in-law used to work there when it was very hush hush. The only outward sign of Keith's employment was when he glowed slightly in the dark!

The Atomic Energy people used to run their own buses ...

... but later vehicles and the present-day operation are with the GoAhead group.

When fbb and Mrs were travelling between their gaff at Culham Station and Wantage, they passed through Abingdon and kept seeing these.

The "Connector" service was launched in July 2015 with the usual smiling officials and soundbites.

Titled the ‘Harwell Connector’, the service will link the Harwell science area with Didcot four times an hour.

The bus service, called the X1/X32, is claimed to be part of a wider scheme to improve access to the Science Vale area, which employs a large contingency of Didcot residents.

The new service was funded by the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, backed by the Department for Transport, and was coordinated by Oxfordshire County Council.

Council leader Ian Hudspeth said: “We hope that the increased frequency of the service will lead to a step change in passenger use."

You can even enjoy (?) a video advert!

In essence an hourly X1 and an hourly X32 are augmented by short workings between Didcot and Harwell to provide the 15 minute frequency.

Impressive. It replaces a historic mixed bag of routes, here from earlier in the 2000s.

There used to be buses from Newbury as well.

Clearly a "regeneration" route aimed at businesses located on the Harwell Campus, the heavily subsidised route represents a huge improvement.

 Something a Bit Older 

Last Saturday fbb accompanied his younger grnadson to the White Horse Leisure Centre in Abingdon. It is the largest such in Oxfordshire offering Swimming, Tennis, Gym and indoor gamnes facilities complete with an excellent caff selling yummy (and fattening) bus and sarnies.

The old man and the lad were striding from car to main entrance to enjoy their afternoon when this turned up ...

... and disgorged a smattering of passengers at the door.

Regsitered 14 LFC, it was easy to spot that it was a Morris vehicle, so not far from its ancestral home.

The Morris Motors Brass Band was founded in 1924 as part of William Morris's welfare drive, and soon started entering national competitions, winning the Crystal Palace Grand Shield in the 1930s. A signature tune, The Morris March, was written for them by Beresford, which is featured on a programme of 1926. William Morris provided a special coach for the band, and their last coach, 14 LFC, dating from 1961. It was specially designed with a large capacity boot to take all the musical instruments, which raised the height of the back half of the coach, giving the passengers a good view as they drove to engagements.

It was restored under the auspices of Oxford Bus Museum.

A sight for sore eyes, indeed.

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Easter Lamb - Resting?

It was on the Thursday before "Good" Friday that Jesus had his final meal with his gang. At that meal they celebrated that first Passover from the time of Moses. Here was broken break and wine (remember Melchizedek) as a visual aid of that powerful event from over 1000 years earlier.

But Jesus gave it a revised meaning. He told his disciples that he was the sacrificial lamb, his body was the broken break and his blood was to be remembered in the drinking of the wine.

In doing so, Jesus instituted one of the central ceremonies of today's church; called Communion" or "The Breaking of Break" or "Eucharist" or "The Lord's Supper" it re0-enacts the passover of long ago and imbues it with the new meaning of Easter.

The tapestry threads are close to completing their picture.

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 Next Abingdon blog : Sunday 27th March 

Episode 2 - Culham station is at Culham Station ...

... and is More Interesting than you Think
Like the footbridge.

See how a new bridge deck and stairs has been glued on to the old poles, and by inserting little extra bits, has been raised; hopefully high enough for the forthcoming electrification. Clever eh?

Oddly, on the "to Oxford" side of the station, a pickled egg's throw from the B&B ...

... the footbridge is inside the station fence. But when you descend on the other side, you are outside the station fence with no obvious way in!

That's because the station is no longer the station. The old building is no longer in use, but neither is its associated platform.

That's because you have to toddle along to a completely new platform to the north of the original. Presumably there is some obscure regulation, designed to make everything more expensive, that prevented the original platform from being used. If there is, it is daft and quite unnecessary for the number of passengers using the "facilities".

But one delight at the foot of the footbridge is the former gents' urinal in all its architectural glory.

And the internal acoutrements are still in place!

But, sadly, locked and barred.

And there are trains to see. In addition to an hourly stopping train between Oxford and Paddington (calling at Culham roughly every two hours - with gaps!), there are half hourly fast trains ...

... whizzing by, supplemented by half hourly cross country (CrossCountry?) service between Reading and Birmingham. Add in an hourly Cotswold line service ...

... and you have six trains an hour in each direction. Most GWR services are operated by 165s ...

... one of which formed the 0917 "stopper" to Paddington.

One person boarded and one plus bicycle alighted. Frenetic activity indeed. The 0933 to Oxford attracted no passengers, either on or off.

 Apart from the inevitable CrossCountry Voyagers ...

... you might be lucky enough to see a Cotswold working by an HST. fbb was not on hand for such an event so has pinched a screen shot from a traiunspotter's video, taken just a little further north than the station

Likewise no pictures of the many freight trains that trundled through, mainly container traffic to and from Southampton. 

But it was very impressive. What began life as a quiet Great Western Railway branch from Didcot to Oxford is now a busy main line carrying loads passengers and goods.

Britain's new railway at its very best.

 Next Oxfordshire blog : Saturday 25th March 

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A reminder : Easter weekend blogs (Friday to Tuesday) have been posted in advance as fbb will be bereft of wifi and phone signal for most of his sojourn in Beddgelert, North Wales. Apologies; comments cannot be acknowledged or given a prompt reply.

STOP PRESS : Due to a non-serious health indisposition for Mrs fbb, the trip to an electronically empty establishment near Beddlegert has been cancelled. But fbb is not going to waste the blogs!

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Lamb for Easter - Baptised!

John The Baptist was busy preaching that the Kingdom of God was on its way (Nigh, as the old language says!) when up strolls his cousin, one Yeshua bar Jusuf. We call him Jesus son of Joseph. Hesitantly John did the water plunging bit and then a few weird things happened, according to Biblical accounts.

The heavens opened

The Spirit of God descended on Jesus

God spoke, "This is my Son"

But it is what John said, as Jesus approached, that is significant for this snippet.

"Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world!"

And today, "Good" Friday, the Christian community remembers just that. The day when "The Lamb" was sacrificed for the Good of the people, to carry off their sins into the wilderness of oblivion.

The shed blood saves the people and "The Lamb" brings them strength.

But it didn't seem very "Good" at the time.

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